Connecting Everything To The Internet: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

If the Internet of Things industry is the Jedi order, with Philips Hue lightsabers and “smart” cloud based Force powers, then popular Twitter account Internet of Shit is a Sith Lord.

- Max Eddy

At a time when the technology industry seems eager to put a chip in everything, consequences be damned, Internet of Shit has put a name to the problem of new, useless electronics and helped highlight that some of these products may not be as benign as we might think.

I spoke with the account’s operator under the condition of anonymity, which PCMag extends only in situations like this, in which we feel that public good outweighs all other consideration. I will refer to this person as IOS. I would love to say that I met IOS in a darkened parking garage, but our conversation took place over Twitter direct message and email. Ho-hum.

Internet of Shit focuses on both the niche and the popular. In the case of, say, paying for a meal using a smart water-bottle, it rightly questions the utility. It highlights the absurdity of having to wait for necessities, like light and heat, that are unavailable after “smart” products receive firmware updates.

As you might imagine, Internet of Shit is able to eviscerate the industry it mocks so effectively because that industry is close to its heart. “It happened so naturally,” IOS said. “I used to spend a lot of time on Kickstarter and saw the rise of the Internet of Things there. It seemed like every other day, some mundane object was having a chip shoved into it, but nobody—even in the media—was being that critical about it. [Websites] would just say things like, ‘Wow, we can finally get the Internet in an umbrella.’”